


Us Against The World

by marauder_in_warblerland



Category: Glee
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-20
Updated: 2015-03-20
Packaged: 2018-03-18 18:14:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3579153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marauder_in_warblerland/pseuds/marauder_in_warblerland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As they pack for New York, Blaine finds a letter that Kurt isn't sure he's ready to share.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Us Against The World

Blaine found the letter as they were packing for their move back to New York. It was buried deep under a mishmash of junk Kurt had grabbed in his mad rush to come back to Lima. Kurt would have recognized it anywhere, even if he hadn’t been sitting close enough to read over Blaine’s shoulder. He’d started using yellow legal pads for a while, as a sort-of temporary journal. They only lasted a week, one of the many new innovations to come and go during the Blaine-less lull after they had . . .  well, after everything. He’d also tried khaki and a George Foreman grill, but nothing stuck.

As Blaine read, silently, Kurt pretended to rearrange his socks, first with the blue on top and then on the bottom. He itched to explain himself. That letter read like an open wound, all raw confusion and anger that Kurt could hardly recognize. In retrospect, his therapist had been right. The words needed to come out somehow, and if anyone could understand that, it would be the man sitting next to him on his childhood bed.

If Blaine could tell that he was being watched, he didn’t say anything. He just leaned back and read.

“Dear Dad,” the letter began.

“I heard about Rachel’s show getting canceled. She didn’t tell me, but then again I haven’t heard anything from her in weeks. It was those boys at NYADA. They’re vultures. I hate the way that they talk about her, like taking joy in her failure could give them even a fraction of her talent. It’s disgusting. Go back to whatever holes you crawled out of, because the theater will never want you.

I’m sorry, Dad. I guess it’s hitting me harder than I thought it would. Maybe it’s because, when I heard that the show failed, my first thought was that she could just go home for a little while. She’s a Millennial; that’s what we do, but then I realized that, beside her dads, she didn’t have much of a home to go back to. The Glee club is gone. There’s computers in the choir room, and, at least according to Tina, all of the old students have been shipped off to other schools. Rachel couldn’t even go back to McKinley and boss the newbies around, because they weren’t there anymore.

It’s not like I didn’t know what Sue did to the club, but maybe it hadn’t really sunk in. Some part of me always thought that if one of us absolutely had to come back, it would still be there, like an old movie. But it won’t, will it? If I came back, even just to visit, the choir room would still be a computer lab, and I would still have to be a grown up. You know me, Dad, better than anyone. You know how much I hated that school, at least at first. It took a long time for that place to be anything other than slushies and drama, but I’m not sure I know how to be the person I’m supposed to be out here if the Glee club isn’t still back there. It was awful at first. God, I remember the fights, but by the end we were—

Dad, if I come back now, I don’t have that family any more. I’m sorry. I know that I will always have you and Carole. That’s not even a question, but I won’t have the family I made, the family I had to fight to make and get back over and over again. I’m not saying that I would go back to McKinley or Will Schuester for support, because that’s not what I mean. It’s not about the people; it’s about the idea of a Glee club as a place that makes people special.

For years, I just assumed that we would all go out into the world and take it over. We would own Broadway and Hollywood and, eventually, the whole damn recording industry. It would be ours, and when people tried to make us feel small we would know that our family was there to tell them where to shove it.

But now? Now, I don’t know. Finn’s gone. He’s really gone. Rachel’s show is over. Sam’s modeling career ended before it began, and Blaine— If I go out there now, it just me against everything, and I got tired of that a long time ago. I might not want to be at home right now, but I want to know that it’s still there, waiting for me. I want that faith that we’re all going to be spectacularly successful. It’s stupid and irrational, but maybe that’s why I want it. It’s also beautiful and I want it back.”

Kurt listened as Blaine turned the paper over, looking for a salutation that wasn’t there. The letter just stopped.

“You never sent it, did you?”

Kurt looked up from the socks to find Blaine watching him. It wasn’t a question.

“No,” Kurt sighed. “You know how Dad reads the mail while he’s drinking his coffee?” Blaine nodded. “He didn’t need to be reading whatever that was first thing in the morning. I thought better of it, and let the therapy stay in New York.” He didn’t say that he never intended to send the letter in the first place. He never intended to send any of them. If Blaine kept reading he’d find one to Rachel another to Mercedes. He had an entire separate notebook full of letters to Blaine.

Blaine nodded again, this time down at the page, as though he was bringing past Kurt into the conversation. “Was this—? had you already— ?”

Kurt smiled down at the comforter, with its fleur-de-lis swirl. “Yeah. I wrote that thing about a week after we were all supposed to meet up on that street corner. Suddenly, Rachel’s community-building didn’t seem so silly.”

“No, I suppose it didn’t.”

Kurt laughed under his breath. “It seems melodramatic now, but at the time—”

“It felt like everything was falling apart.” Blaine reached out to grab his hand, gently. “I know. And it wasn’t just Rachel or the club.”

Kurt squeezed it back. He couldn’t look up, not when old, fragile Kurt felt so close to the surface. “Read between the lines, did you?”

“I was always good at that.” Blaine said. Kurt could hear the smile on his lips.

He snorted. “No, you weren’t. You were the worst at that.”

“Okay, so maybe I was _the worst_ at subtext, but you were also remarkably subtle.”

Kurt glanced up, and there was that smile, the _gosh your lips look delicious grin_. Kurt bit his lip. “Ah, yes,” he said, all seriousness. “Subtlety is my middle name. I particularly remember subtly asking for your help on homework, subtly inviting you to parties, subtly staring at your ass. . .”

Blaine shrugged. “To be fair, everyone should have a chance to stare at my ass. I’ve been told it’s magnificent.”

When Kurt tackled him, Blaine squeaked, and then he nuzzled back into the comforter, as though it had been his idea all along. He wanted to land on his back, and so there he was. He stared up into Kurt’s face, his eyes still laughing, and Kurt didn’t think that he’d ever seen anything so beautiful. After everything that happened, this man still trusted Kurt like it was in his bones.

Kurt leaned down to press their lips together. The kiss was feather light, but Blaine still melted at the touch. Maybe he did too.

“You know I don’t feel that way anymore,” Kurt said, as he dropped a kiss onto Blaine’s forehead. With a finger, he traced Blaine’s hairline down to his jaw, and watched his eyes flicker open again. “It was a long time ago. Things aren’t falling apart, at least not right now, and if they do, I know that my family isn’t going anywhere.” He grabbed Blaine’s hand and leaned into the touch, pressing ring-marks into his skin.

Blaine breathed. “And if they try to make us feel small?” He ran his free hand up Kurt’s back to the dip in his spine and let his fingers slip under the hem of Kurt’s shirt.

Kurt grinned. “Bring it on.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Nadiacreek for the late-night beta!


End file.
